Good morning from Dumai, Sumatra. And today is an interesting day for me because I’m heading back to Malaysia today. I’m actually saying goodbye to the Ohana Hotel here in Dumai. I’ve been staying here for the last couple of weeks. And yeah, there’s the hotel. Yeah, it’s kind of a handy place for local people, low budget hotel, but they have parking behind a security gate. So that’s really nice. Not a lot of parking, but just enough for the rooms here, which is kind of cool. And yeah, I’m saying goodbye to that building and one over here. There’s three of them, I think, here that have the swiftlets. So they have the recording of the swiftlets day and night. It’s 24 hours a day. Pretty loud. And of course, I have to say goodbye to my roosters.
So many roosters over here. So they’ve been keeping me company during the time that I’m here. And I’m taking a ferry back to Malaysia. I’ve got my bicycle over there. So now I’ve got about a 4 km ride to get to the dock. I’m running a little bit late according to my schedule. I like to get to places really, really early, so I’m a little bit behind, but I think it’s okay. It’s pretty casual affair getting on one of these boats, but yeah, I better hit the road.
Hello. Hello.
And just as I’m leaving from my hotel, of course, I’ve got to do my physical and mental pat down. Make sure I have everything. My wallet, my phone, my other phone, my other phone, my passport, all the important things. Pretty sure I’ve got everything I need.
I’ve done this trip before, of course. I’ve taken a ferry back and forth from Malaysia to Sumatra a few times and I’ve even taken a ferry out of Dumai in the past. So this isn’t a brand new experience and I’m not going to document every single minute of the trip, but this is a little bit different because I’ve never gone from Dumai to Malacca before.
Okay. Well, this is kind of a crazy intersection.
I think I’m going to ride this way a little bit and then try to do a U-turn.
I think I didn’t end up in the right spot there for making a right-hand turn.
I said it’s a little bit later than I was planning. So things are a lot busier than I was expecting.
I had a break in the traffic there.
But then I ended up with something very slow moving. That always happens to me. I time it wrong.
Yeah. Dumai, man. It’s a surprising city. Bustling much more than you would think. All right, here’s an opening. I can finally start heading in the right direction.
On the positive side, it’s been raining pretty heavily quite a few times early in the morning and this morning I lucked out. No rain and that’s really the most important thing to be honest. Another intersection. Pretty busy. And I can turn left here though if I don’t want to wait for the light.
Get away from the downtown area. Of course, I have to head down to the coast and then follow the shore to get to the terminal, the ferry terminal.
For this trip, I didn’t end up using my bicycle as much as I thought I would. So if I had found a place to keep it in Malacca, I probably could have left it behind for this trip. I didn’t really need it here. It was nice to have, but it wasn’t essential.
Now that I’m the master of the go jacks, go-karts, and grab cars. I could easily have taken a go-kart from my hotel to the dock. But as I said, it’s really nice to have a bicycle with you, even if you don’t use it every day. You experience a place differently when you have your own transportation.
Sun isn’t out. But man, you can feel the humidity.
Crazy high levels of humidity. I feel like I’m swimming through the air. So, so wet.
And physically, I have to say I’m not in the best of shape. I don’t know how much I talked about it in the previous video. I think I did. But yeah, I got sick here again the last two weeks. I get along very well with the people of Sumatra. The environment here, I like it here a lot. But the bacteria, the native bacteria of Sumatra and I, we don’t get along at all lately.
On all of my recent trips here, I’ve gotten quite sick.
Stuck at this intersection, too, because nobody’s using their turn signals, so I can’t tell if somebody’s turning or not. I end up waiting for no reason.
Here’s a fun roundabout.
Oh, I was wondering why it was here. It didn’t make any sense, but there’s actually a large cemetery in the middle. I guess when they built the road, they didn’t want to disturb the cemetery, so they put it in the middle of a roundabout and had the road go around it.
But yeah, I was saying that I haven’t been feeling well. I’m recovering now. So I’m back on the mend, but this illness has left me pretty weak again. After the end of one of these bouts of illness, I end up feeling a bit weak. Not as sharp as I normally am. So going to have to make an effort to pay attention today. Make sure I’m not drifting through this experience and I don’t make any silly mistakes along the way.
One different feature about today’s trip is that this boat, I guess, is a smaller one than I usually take. So it doesn’t have a lower deck and an upper deck. There’s only one deck down below, economy class. So that’s where I am this time.
On all my previous trips lately, I paid a little bit extra to sit on the upper deck. They call it VIP class.
It’s not really VIP, but the seats are bigger.
And when there’s a row of seats, there’s less seats in each row. You just end up with a lot more elbow room, a lot more leg room. And the outer deck on the boat is much bigger and there’s less people per bathroom, less bathroom pressure. So it is nicer to get the big boat, sit on the upper deck, but I couldn’t do that this time.
And they have reserved seating, which I don’t think I’ve ever had in the past. They pointed out that my ticket has a seat number with my reserved seat, but I don’t know if people pay attention to their seat numbers or not.
The boat is scheduled to leave at 9:00 a.m. 7:30 right now. So hour and a half before departure time. But in my experience, the boats out of Sumatra, they never leave on time. Up to an hour late, all the ones I’ve taken.
So I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get here super early because then you might end up waiting a really long time.
I thought for a minute I was arriving at the dock, but this is a big Pelindo installation on the shore. Yeah. Here’s the dock. They’re right beside each other and they have the same color scheme.
Malaka you. Yep.
Wasn’t sure if I had to show a ticket at the main gate, but I didn’t. I think if you’re in a car, you have to pay a small fee to enter this area. Now, I remember long ago I came to this port and checking in and dropping off your luggage was pretty chaotic, but looks really quiet right now. I think where I go is just over here on the left.
Bye bye.
Your bicycle. Yes, also say and back. And two bag. Yeah.
65,000 rupiah. 65,000.
Okay. All right. Everything okay? Okay. Thank you. Okay.
Hello. Morning. Good morning. Check in. Check in. This is all you already check in. All done. All done. But you have to pay 75,000 for the port tax. Okay. You pay over there. Oh, over there. Okay. You pay with card. Okay. Thank you.
Hello. Hello. You need to pay the taxes. Cash. Okay. We not only pay by only card. Okay. Only card. I have a yes. You have the 75,000. 75,000.
Yeah. 75. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Go.
Can I see your ticket? Mhm. Okay. Can’t wait. All right. Thank you. Welcome. So far so good. Very smooth. At least very smooth for me. You just have to kind of bumble along. I mean, I showed up, of course, and I’m looking for a sign that says Indomal fast ferry sort of luggage drop off, but there is no such thing, right? There’s actually like this tiny wooden counter off on the left, but it had no signage on it at all. There’s no Indomal sign or anything. So you just don’t know where to go or what to do, but you just ask people, you wander from place to place, and eventually you end up where you’re supposed to be. And they took my bicycle, no problem at all. And two bags. I had my two pannier bags. Those were all prepared in advance. And it cost what did it cost? 65. Yeah. 65,000 rupiah for my bicycle and luggage. So yeah, another reason why bringing your bicycle with you is actually a pretty good idea. Doesn’t cost much to put it on the ferry. And I didn’t have to deal with any porters. Quite often at a busy port there might be like five or six porters surrounding you all trying to grab your bags and help you out. And here it’s, I guess it seems very organized. They actually had to shout to get a porter to come over to weigh the bags. The two women, they don’t weigh it themselves. They wait for someone else to do it. And there was nobody there. So they eventually had to shout and get someone’s attention. A man came. He weighed my two bags, told them how much it weighed, and then yeah, I paid. One wrinkle which you probably saw in that section of video is that you have to pay the port tax of 75,000 rupiah. And I knew about that in advance. I knew I had to pay for luggage and the port tax. So I made sure I had enough Indonesian rupiah cash left over, right? That’s most people get caught in the old days because they arrive at the airport or the dock and they’ve spent all their local currency and then there’s some sort of a tax. It’s like, “Ah well, now I don’t have any money to pay.” These days it’s the opposite because I’ve made sure to have enough cash but they won’t take cash. Like even at a dock like this, very informal, very casual, very rough around the edges, but they’re modern enough that the guy says, “No, you can’t pay with money. You have to pay with card.” He said, “When” I don’t really have a card that I could use, but luckily they also take e-wallet payments. So as I’m leaving the country, I used Touch ‘n Go, the Malaysian e-wallet, Touch ‘n Go to scan the QR code, and then I could pay the 75,000 rupiah port tax. If I didn’t have either Touch ‘n Go or GoPay, some kind of e-wallet, I would have been stuck. Yeah, because I’m just not a card guy, you know? I don’t have credit cards. I don’t walk around scanning debit cards and credit cards, things like that. So yeah, I would have been stuck. I brought cash, but they don’t take cash. So luckily Touch ‘n Go saved me once more.
All done with immigration. Very smooth. They always have a lot of questions for me, which is always kind of fun because the immigration officer is just chatting, you know, small talk. But what he’s really trying to figure out, of course, is what you do, who are you, and why were you here, where did you go? But it’s all couched in friendly banter. But what he’s trying to figure out is are you suspicious or not? And again, my YouTube channel kind of saved me because he said, “Oh, and in the end, oh, so you’re making YouTube videos. You know, what is your channel?” And I have my name card. And he looks up the videos and he says, “Oh, okay.” As long as my story makes sense to him and he sees the YouTube channel, it’s like, okay, this guy’s story, he’s probably up. He’s an okay guy. He’s not doing anything bad. And then they let me through. Yeah, they’ve got two boats here right now. One over here, that’s the one I wanted to take, the big one. Lower deck, upper deck, but I guess today they’re running an older boat. This one, well, it’s got an upper deck as well. Upper deck and lower deck. They told me it didn’t have an upper deck, like no VIP seating. That maybe it’s just not open. Anyway, we’ll find out.
Excuse me. Malacca. Yes, sir. Malacca. Yes. Number. Yeah. Number 146. 146. Okay. 146.
So yeah, I’m on board. And yeah, being in the lower deck of this older boat, very different experience from my previous trips where I had the VIP seating in a more modern modern boat. So it’s much more crowded down here on the lower deck. A lot noisier, a lot louder, a lot more life down here, I guess. But my seat is this one, aisle seat. But yeah, it’s interesting that they have an upper deck, but it doesn’t seem to be open. So there’s this area at the front. So this is a seating area at the front and then where I am way in the back. But I don’t even see any stairs leading to an upper deck. So I don’t know where it is. Yeah, this is my seat right here. 146.
Just going to go for a walk up and down the boat.
Just curious how full it is up here. It’s a lot quieter up here.
Yeah, there’s a lot of empty seats.
And so we’re underway. As I said, a very different experience on this boat than on the other boats I’ve been on. I don’t know what’s going on upstairs. I did see a whole bunch of men come out of the lower deck, go out this door, and maybe they disappeared. So maybe there is seating upstairs, but I don’t know. And down here on the lower deck, very, very loud, much more crowded. And then out here on the deck, you’re closer to the water, which is kind of cool.
You can see how fast we’re going. So even though it’s a smaller boat, I think we’re still going at the same speed. Maybe 45 km an hour, something like that. There’s the island over there. Oh, yeah. There’s all those guys up there, but I don’t know if the seating is open over there or not. It would have been nice to be outside because we were close to the shore over there and there’s a lot of big ships there loading and unloading oil and palm oil, things like that, but I couldn’t get a close look at it.
A lot of exhaust here too from the engines. So you can really smell the exhaust here and inside the boat as well.
Want to see where these stairs go.
So yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. When I booked the ticket, I asked, I mean I wanted to buy the VIP seat on the upper deck and they said there were no seats on this boat that they were sending on this day. Yeah, my throat is really raw already from the exhaust from downstairs. They said there were no VIP seats, so I just bought a regular one, but it turns out there is VIP seating up here. Yeah, there’s a whole upper deck here. You can see. And yeah, a whole bunch more seats in front of me. Much quieter up here. Much more comfortable. And the air feels cleaner because you’re not so near the engines. And I’ve got this whole row to myself. So I spoke to a couple of the men down below trying to ask them, you know, can I just change seats? And nobody knew what I was asking. So I just grabbed my bag and came up here. And yeah, if they say, “Oh, this is VIP. You have to pay more,” I’ll just pay more and sit up here. Anyway, I’ll sit here for now and see what happens. It’s tons and tons of empty seats. As you can see, all these rows are completely empty. Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s more comfortable. Much more comfortable up here.
Well, so far so good on this journey. So far, couldn’t ask for a smoother trip in Dumai, getting on the boat, having Touch ‘n Go to pay the port tax, sailing through immigration, and then yeah, we left 15 minutes early. I forgot to mention that. Supposed to leave at 9:00 and I said that normally the boats leave an hour late. They normally do like leaving from Tanjung Balai but here they left 15 minutes early and we’re just arriving at Malacca now at 4 after 11. So yeah, 2 and 1/2 hours exactly. Feels like we just left. And to prove to you I’m not lying, there is Malacca out there.
All the big hotels that I noticed when I first came to Malacca and through the this window up here I can just see the observation tower near where my hotel is. My throat isn’t really working for some reason. I can’t speak that well. But yeah, welcome back to Malacca. And now of course final stage going through immigration here in Malaysia. So fingers crossed that goes smoothly. Yeah, when I was out on deck, down on the lower deck, I went out there just to get warm because it is so cold in here. The air conditioning is like at freezer level. So I was out on deck occasionally just to warm up. And I saw my bike out there. They have this big pile of luggage. And yeah, I guess that’s where they piled the luggage. And then my bike is on the edge and they have a big tarp over it. But I saw the wheels of the bike and the pedals poking out from behind the tarp. So my bicycle did make it onto the boat. Anyway, as I said, fingers crossed with the immigration. And then the hotel, I left my luggage in storage at the hotel. Hopefully that worked out well. I ended up staying away longer than I told them. So hopefully they didn’t look at the bags sitting there and go, “Huh, this guy’s never coming back and got rid of them.” Anyway, so I’ve got a few little details to take care of yet. Immigration, getting to the hotel, and seeing if my luggage that I left behind is still okay. This is kind of cool actually because I remember now that when I left from Malacca on this ferry or on a ferry, I was nowhere near a window. So I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t film anything out any of the windows as we were leaving. But now that we’re arriving, I’m up here on the you know, up here on the upper deck still and everybody’s already left. There’s nobody up here at all. But from here, I’ve got a window seat, so I can actually see outside the Malacca River. And this would be a bit of history, I guess, when you think about all of the trade going in and out of Malacca. It would have gone in and out of this river. So I get to see the shore of the river from the ferry for the first time.
And oh, look at that. See those monitor lizards down there? Big ones.
I heard somebody talking about that the other day that they kept thinking they saw crocodiles, but it turns out, of course, they weren’t seeing crocodiles. They were seeing monitor lizards. But they can get so big in these waters in Malaysia. They can actually look like crocodiles. But this is where my hotel was located actually. These buildings right here. And I learned something really fascinating that made Malacca make so much more sense to me that all of this is reclaimed land. So back in the heyday of Malacca when it was like a world city, like an important world trading center, this was all still the Malacca Strait. There was no land here and in fact the water went much further inland. So that made the geography of the city make a lot more sense to me. There’s the Indomal ferry right there. I don’t know where we’re going to be docking. Maybe we’re backing in to that location. We’re going to be right in front of the other ferry. Yeah, I don’t really know.
Yeah, looks like that’s what we’re doing.
But when I was downtown, like going to all the museums and looking at the remains of the wall, like the gates, the south gate that’s still there, A Famosa, the ruins, all the maps, none of the maps made any sense to me because I would see a map with the A Famosa, like the fortress wall right along the Malacca Strait, like right on the water. And I was like, well, that doesn’t make any sense because the water is way down here and the walls aren’t here. But it turns out that, like I said, all of this is reclaimed land. And back in the days when the Portuguese built A Famosa, they built the walls right along the shore. But the reason the maps don’t make any sense is because the shore used to be way inland. None of this was the shoreline in the past. So that was pretty amazing piece of history that I figured out. Oh, there we are. Yeah, we’re actually backing up right into this space here. And I guess this is where we’re getting off the boat. Yeah, I’ve really learned to like this boat. It’s very casual. Oh, he’s catching the rope.
Like I said, there was a whole lot of confusion about is there an upper deck, like VIP seating, and they told me there wasn’t, but it turns out there was. But you can just sort of wander around the boat, sit anywhere you like. And even the doors that go to the outer decks on the other boats I’ve taken, they seal. So every time you go through the door, you got to grab that big bar and it really takes a lot of effort to open the door and push it open. These doors are just open all the time. So everybody just goes in and out constantly and you don’t have to push on the big door or anything. And yeah, just a very casual short journey. Okay, I’ve got the GoPro mounted on my neck mount. But yeah, this is what I mean. This door here is just like a normal house door. You just open it and out you go.
And there’s the river.
And they go from the upper deck down to the lower deck. You just go down these stairs here.
Oh yeah. And this is where all the luggage, they piled all the luggage here. These boats going in and out of Dumai, they don’t seem to carry nearly as much luggage. So the boat out of Port Dickson would have massive amounts of luggage. Fills the whole of the ship. But this is a very small amount. Oh, look at that. They even mounted my bags on the bike. That’s cool.
And this is the galley. They didn’t really have any food. They had like cup of noodles, instant coffee, Milo, and that was it.
Yeah. Okay.
I need a picture of the boat. I’ve been distracted all morning. I’ve been forgetting to take pictures.
There it is. I don’t even know the name of this boat. It’s the Indomal Express something. Indomal Express 8.
Oh, and then my bicycle is already here. So I guess take it from here.
So it’s the same as in Tanjung Balai and you just basically grab your luggage right off the boat and take it in with you instead of going through immigration first. So anyway, there’s my bike ready to go. I’m just going to put my camera away as I go through the immigration process. And there’s the boat, by the way. Everybody getting their luggage and yeah, my hotel is just across the river over there. And there’s the bigger boat. That’s the one I took before. That’s the boat I took to go to Dumai. That’s the Indomal Kingdom over there. Yeah, you can see it’s a really nice building here. Very clean and newish looking. All right, let’s put the camera away.
And that is it. I’ve arrived officially back in Malaysia. Just walking my bike out of the arrival hall, the main terminal building. If I can just turn my bike around, show you the terminal building. There it is right there. Big and lots of space on the inside. Yeah, going through immigration was fine. Of course, I was the last person off the boat, last person in line at immigration. And then, of course, the guy he gave me the wrong stamp originally. So there was one little hiccup there where he stamped and then suddenly there was a woman up above in a window above us opened the window and started calling down to him and then he wasn’t paying attention and then other people started calling out to him saying, “You know, look up, look up, that woman’s shouting at you.” And I thought, “Oh boy, I must have set off alarm bells somehow.” And I was going to get in trouble, but he just, she shouted something down to him, but it had nothing to do with me, so that was fine. Oh, okay. That’s what’s going on. I put my pannier bags on the wrong side and yeah, they were hitting my feet, the heels of my feet. So hey, this doesn’t feel right. There’s something wrong. But just the way the bags are shaped, they have this, I don’t know if you can see this, but on the front there’s a cutout here. So as your feet go around, your heel goes through this space. That’s why they cut it here. But I had them flipped around so my heels were hitting the bags.
Yeah, this double kickstand is really working. That one kickstand by itself doesn’t really hold the bike up. This one by itself doesn’t hold the bike up. But the two of them together just barely manages to do it. So that worked out well having, so far anyway, instead of having one good kickstand, I have two bad ones and it sort of works out.
Yeah. Anyway, my immigration guy, he finally got back to me after, you know, talking, shouting back and forth with the woman up above. And then he stamped my passport and was about to let me go and then he stopped and went, “Oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no.” And I thought, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay, something’s wrong.” But it turns out he just put in a 30-day stamp. So he put in the wrong stamp. So he had to cross it out and put his initials on crossing it out. And then he put in a 90-day stamp. And of course, he asked me where I’m going, like the usual immigration questions. Where are you going today? Where are you sleeping? How long? Where are you going? How long will you be in Malaysia? And I just tried to answer those questions as confidently as I could with appropriate answers. And yeah, I got through immigration.
So that worked out well. And of course, I was here before and I rode my bike to this terminal. So I pretty much know I know where I am and I kind of know how to get back to my hotel from here.
It’s always a good feeling to just get through immigration in a new country and you have a new visa starting at day one starting to countdown. You feel like a wealthy man because in my lifestyle time is much more valuable than anything else, more valuable than money because I don’t really have any money anyway. So can’t really worry about that. So the most valuable thing in my life is tourist visa days. They’re as precious as gold. It’s nice to arrive in a country and have a fresh visa starting from day one and counting down.
So, just because of all the one-way streets, I have to do a little bit of a dipsy doodle to find my way back. So I’m heading down the main the downtown core of Malacca.
And the right hand turn at this intersection should take me back to Dutch Square. And from there, short distance to my hotel where I have a reservation.
And here we are, the famous walking street of Malacca. What day is it today? I’ve lost track of time. It’s a Tuesday, I guess. But even on a Tuesday, it’s pretty busy. A lot of visitors.
This is the bridge that goes over to Dutch Square. I think they have it blocked off to traffic, but I think I can sneak through with my bicycle.
I’m back in my neighborhood. Since I stored my luggage at my old hotel, of course, I had to book a room there again to justify them keeping my bags there. And this is the last bit of luck. Did they actually keep my bags this long or throw them away?
Hello, boss. Hello. How are you? I’m fine. How are you? I’m okay now. It’s good. Good be back in Malaysia. Yeah, I was gone long time. Long time. It was supposed to be short, but in Indonesia it got. Oh, I give you a first floor. Okay, sounds good. This area. Okay. Yeah. Nice. So this you A1. Okay. So last bit of luck clicking into place. I could see my luggage still there, so they had no problem keeping it for me. And they had my reservation. They knew I’d already paid the tourism tax. And they gave me a room early. It’s 2 hours early from check-in, but they had a room available. This one right here on the first floor.
And for the journey from Sumatra back here to Malacca. That’s it. You know, knock on wood. The rest of my life goes as smoothly as that did. Yeah, it was perfectly fine. I mean, I woke up really early, which is what I always do. I mean, I was up at 4:00, like 4:00 in the morning, because I really like to ease into the day. I didn’t need to be. I could have woken up at 6:00 or even 7 if I was pre-packed, and then just hopped on the bike and raced to the terminal and, you know, things probably would have worked out. But I don’t like to do that. I wake up early so that I can take a luxurious cold water shower. I’m going to have a hot water shower here for the first time in a month. A full month of cold showers in Dumai. But yeah, I take a cold shower, have a cup of coffee, relax in my room, and then I just, I go, I do things very slowly. And then when I’m ready, then I head to the ferry terminal. Worked out really well. Yeah. Got on the boat and then I was able to go up to a VIP seating in the top even though this boat isn’t supposed to have any, you know, 2 and 1/2 hours on the boat and here I am. Got through immigration. The only wrinkle was he accidentally gave me a 30-day stamp. That’s a, that’s a pro tip. When I leave from immigration, I always stop, look at the stamp, examine it, and take a picture of it because you never know. They could make a mistake. They could give you 90 days on the computer, but stamp 30 in your passport or something. Anyway, always look. So I would have caught it myself, but he caught it. He put in 30 days, then he went, “Oh, wrong stamp.” And even the 90-day stamp, it actually is really blurry. His stamp isn’t very good. So it’s kind of hard to, so I was like staring at it going because he circled it as well to make sure that this is the right, this is the valid stamp. And he put a circle around it, but because of that and it’s blurry, it’s like, okay, is that a 30 or did he now give me 20? Like what? But I looked at it under zoom magnification and I think it’s 90. He did give me 90. So that’s cool. And then here’s my new room. Very nice. Better than my other room, I think, that I had here at the Mahkota Vibe Inn. It just feels nicer. This building is nicer. This is the main building. And I get really big windows here, which is nice. Looks out over the main street. There’s the laundromat over there. I’m going to use that right away. Maybe even tonight. It’s time to do laundry. And the bathroom.
Yeah, pretty standard. A working hot water heater. Yeah. So I’m back in Malacca. Very glad to be back here. Yeah, it’s a nice city. So I’m going to go down to my bike. I have a bottle of water still on my bicycle. So I’m going to bring up some water so I can boil water for a coffee and yeah, settle into my room.